‘This is an opportunity that we’ve all been waiting for’: Georges Niang’s Inquirer diary lifts curtain on Sixers’ playoff run

Welcome to the latest edition of Georges Niang’s 2022-23 Sixers diary. Throughout the season, the reserve forward will exclusively share first-person insights about his on-court and off-court life as part of an NBA team with championship aspirations.

In this entry, Niang describes how the Sixers pushed through their grueling stretch-run schedule and looks ahead to a critical postseason.

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This is an opportunity that we’ve all been waiting for. The older you get, you kind of realize how excited you are to let the regular season pass and have the real, meaningful games start. You just want to be dialed in. I don’t think anybody’s looking ahead. We want to beat Brooklyn. That’s our main focus right now.

When our schedule came out, I know that we looked at after the All-Star break being like, “Damn, that is no joke.” You start off with a Memphis team. You start off with the Celtics. You start off with Miami. We lost two out of three, and then we had to go down to Miami and then we kind of went on a roll. I just remember, toward the end of that run in March, it felt like I never got to lay in my bed and be comfortable. I feel like I came home, unpacked my stuff, then packed to leave again. That was a tough stretch, considering we were barely home. The next time that we have two weeks full of home games, I’m going to appreciate the [expletive] out of those.

The toughest part about that schedule is the unknowns, whether that’s guys missing time or getting guys acclimated after the trade deadline. The theme all year is we’re finding ways to win games when people aren’t expecting us to win games, or even be in games. James was out for four games. Joel was out with the calf. Our team has just done such a good job of, with the variables and whatever happens, that we all come together and when we aren’t full strength, making things happen. It’s kind of been a growth for us — finding ways to deal with adversity when, in other times, we didn’t do such a great job of that. It just goes to show how deep our team is and what we have with the coaching staff. Even when we don’t have our top guys out there, we can win games against other teams that are playoff-bound. I thought that was really cool, especially going into the postseason getting everybody confident.

There’s so much to be said about that. Doc doesn’t get enough credit for kind of envisioning that. We clinched the third seed. Obviously, you could ride your guys and see how many wins you get and make it about you. But, obviously, getting everybody confident and ready to go before the playoffs starts, you’ve got to give credit to him. We sat our top six guys in Atlanta, and then you go in there and beat a team that really needed that win. At the end of the day, it’s crucial that a coach sees that and knows that he’s going to need everybody.

We could have gotten beat in Atlanta, but we come back and win. You look at the development of Jaden Springer, everything that he’s been through in his two years as a young kid. Coming in as a one-and-done. Most guys ruin their NBA careers within the first two years not being able to play or getting called up or being down in the G League. They start getting discouraged and they start losing focus of the end goal. He stuck with it for two long years, and when his moment came — which was probably Game One-hundred-and-freaking-63 of the time that he’s been here — and he was ready to knock his opportunity out of the park. He can really freaking play, and people see that. It’s so cool to see people relish in the opportunities that they’re given, when they’re given. Because you never know when it’s going to come. You sit there and tell people to be ready, be ready, be ready. You don’t understand how hard it is to be ready for five months, but you just consistently stick to your routine and do what you do and it comes along.

I think everybody at this level — or everybody in life — kind of has that happen to them. You wake up and you’re like, “Damn, I don’t know if I want to do this.” Even the small victories. I’m struggling for seven or eight games, and I get the opportunity in Atlanta to break out of that, and now I’m feeling confident going into the playoffs. Your story is just always being written, and it’s totally up to you to be mentally and physically prepared to not stress over the little stuff but to focus on your daily routine. I’m going to continue to double down on the work that’s got me here, and I’m just gonna stick to my process and the things that help me go. Knowing that I’ve put the work in, so that when the opportunity comes, I’m just flowing. I’m not putting any pressure on myself. I’m just flowing.

Steph Curry said it best. I heard it in an interview: The playoffs are like two regular-season games in one. That’s how freaking hard you’re playing. Guys’ minutes may go down. Guys’ minutes may go up. But that’s how hard you’re playing. It’s super physical. There are not ticky-tack fouls being called. It is very intense. There’s no helping people up off the floor. It’s cut-throat. Everybody wants to win it. It’s the most intense part of the season. When I first got into the NBA, Kevin Pritchard in Indiana told me there’s five stints in the season. Preseason. The beginning of the season, when everybody’s kind of feeling each other out. Pre-All-Star break, when everybody’s exhausted and can’t wait until the break. After All-Star break. And then playoffs. Playoffs are when young boys get exposed, and the men really flourish. I’ve always taken that to heart and realized that playoff basketball is just so intense with the attention to detail. You’re going to know everything that they run. They’re going to know everything that you run. It’s just who’s going to fight through the crap and all that to come out victorious. It’s like going into the room and being like, “All right, who’s coming out alive?”

Down in the bubble with Utah, we were up 3-1 against Denver. You’re thinking we’re going to beat them, and anything can happen. Then you kind of realize the knockout game is the hardest freaking game. All we’ve got to do is get one out of the next three, and they come back and we lose three straight because the unexpected happened. So you always have to prepare to cover all your bases. There’s no taking your foot off the gas. Sometimes, in the regular season, you can get away with doing that. There’s no place for that at all in the playoffs.

We only got to play this version of the Nets once. They’re a very good team. They do a good job of really spacing you out and moving the ball and making a crap-ton of threes and driving the ball and just shifting the defense. And they’re really good in transition, so we’re going to have to do a good job of taking care of the ball, not having careless turnovers, closing out possessions, but then getting our guys to our spots. I feel like if we can continuously do that and make it hard for them to be successful with their “junk” defenses or their switching and punish them for the switching, I think we’ll be in a good spot. They do a really good job and have a lot of good players, but we’re definitely going to try to limit them with their transition and easy baskets, because I feel like that’s kind of what gets their guys going.

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It’s just so crucial having guys that have been there before. P.J. is great because he’s been there and he’s friggin’ not afraid to open his mouth and tell people what it is and what they need to do. You have a guy like Tobias Harris, who completely bought into his role, where in other instances there may be some guys in the NBA that are like, “I don’t like what I do on a day-to-day basis.” He’s all-in on defending, making shots, taking advantage of mismatches. That’s been huge for us. The rest of it is we all genuinely like each other and enjoy being around each other.

And, in the playoffs, you really realize, if you don’t win, this is it. Quin Snyder, when I was in Utah, he was like, “Every season is a life. You will never have the same team twice in a row.” Doc even says it all the time, “Some of you may go on and have a better deal somewhere else, but you don’t know how many times you’ll actually have a team that has a chance to win. So take advantage of these opportunities.” I think that all hit home with us. We started 12-12, he made that speech, and you’re like, “Shoot, we have a chance to make this happen.” I’m not getting any younger. We need to relish in those opportunities and continue to grow and be better, and I think that’s what we’ve done.

I don’t think we feel any pressure. One, because we’re confident in what we do and it’s proven it works. There’s no point in us being like, “Oh, this is too much to handle,” because I think all of us realize, if we do our job, it has a proven success rate. I think that’s the most exciting thing for us right now. Obviously, playing in Philly has its own pressures. You don’t want to lose, because you better not be going out to eat after that. But at the same time, if you win, you know how well you’ll be taken care of. That’s another thing that I think most of us look at: Winning and being beloved by this great fan base.

— Georges Niang, as told to Gina Mizell